CDRAMA REVIEW: Parallel World (2023)

We all know I love tomb raiding Cdramas. That has morphed into me also loving adventure cdramas as well. Parallel World has been on my plan to watchlist forever! I was drawn in by the lead actors and the fact that it is an adventure drama. Those 2 parts of the drama did not disappoint. This Cdrama isn't perfect though so, this review is a mixed bag, and I think if you want to check this Cdrama out, something in the Cdrama must already be drawing you in like the cast or the genre. This Cdrama is definitely not for everyone.

Now as per usual with any review I write, I will not be including any spoilers in the first part of this review - you will get a spoiler warning before we move into spoiler territory

A QUICK SYNOPSIS OF PARALLEL WORLD (Taken right from Mydramalist.com) - A beautiful melon seller, Ye Liu Xi, and a shadow puppet performer, Chang Dong, join forces to venture deep into the desert. One seeks to unravel the mystery of her origins, while the other aims to retrieve the remains of his girlfriend and 17 others who perished under mysterious circumstances.

This Chinese drama is entertaining and has a lot of good things about it. It isn't perfect though. I had a lot of issues with this cdrama as well. OVERALL, I think this drama will work for certain groups of people. If you are a fan of either Bai Yu or Ni Ni (like me), you will like this drama. If you are a fan of adventure dramas, you will like this drama. If you can turn your brain off and just watch a drama, you will probably like this drama.

⚠️THIS IS YOUR SPOILER WARNING!!!! WE ARE ENTERING SPOILER TERRITORY BEYOND THIS POINT!! ⚠️

WHAT I LOVED ABOUT THIS DRAMA

THE FEMALE LEAD - Ye Liu Xi, played by Ni Ni, was one of the BEST THINGS about this cdrama. You knew from the first scene in episode 1 she was badass. She is a force of nature and Ni Ni acts her flawlessly. Ye Liu Xi has strength and charisma and of course is beautiful because it is Ni Ni after all. Her character is unapologetically loud and aggressive. Her character brought Bai Yu's more reserved character out. She was intimating and knew how to fight, and Ni Ni was great acting this out. She demanded respect and she got it. Her character reminded me a little of Lara Croft.

THE LEAD COUPLE - The couple both had comedic moments but also had a heavier mood around them with their past traumas. I think they had a pretty mature relationship. THE LEAD'S HAD CHEMISTRY! I loved the combo of brains and brawn, but gender switched. It was refreshing. I also loved how Ni Ni's more aggressive and loud character complimented Bai Yu's more reserved character. Their relationship also was healing especially with Bai Yu's character because his character has a lot of trauma to deal with. I loved that Ni Ni's character helped him deal with the trauma in her own unique way. She knew when to push and when to pull back which was another way their chemistry worked.

THE LEAD'S ACTING - The leads' acting really stood out. Certain actors within the support cast also acted well. I think what helped though was how much of a story with depth was given to the actor to chew on. The leads had a great story and trauma GALORE to act through. Some of the support characters also got this especially near the end. Other support characters I don't think was given enough to show their acting skills so, they were overshadowed by the actors/actresses that did. Some of support characters that I think stood out was Gao Shen (played by Li Yun Rui) and Li Jin Ao (played by Wang Xing Han). Wang Xing Han is a veteran Chinese actor and any time I see him in a cast, I know he will be good. He is known for comedy, and he was absolutely hilarious in this. I think Li Yun Rui shined as more of the drama unfolded. He was sort of a one note character at the beginning but the more his story was revealed, and more tragedy happened to his character, his acting came out. You still watch this for the leads and their acting though because they had the most to chew on.

PROPS TO THE CREW FILMING ON LOCATION - I was about halfway through this cdrama when I read that the cast and crew had shot this on location. This means, the cast and crew shot in a desert for a bulk portion of this drama. That is impressive. I can't even imagine the conditions they were filming in. It also led to some GORGEOUS landscape and scenery shots in this Cdrama.

THE LORE/WORLD BUILDING - The lore with this Cdrama was impressive. The lore and world building was rich with a lot of details in it. This was also a good and bad thing which I will talk about in the section where I talk about the things that I wish were different with this drama. The parallel was interesting and I loved learning about it. I loved learning about the different factions and the people in this Parallel World. I loved trying to see how it could be a parallel world to where Bai Yu's character was from where there were differences but also similarities. I found myself looking forward to learning more about this Parallel World as the characters explored the parallel world. The Parallel World had a lot of creativity within it with its monsters and different characters you meet.

THE MAIN GROUP - I will admit, it took me a bit to warm up to some characters that eventually made out the main group of adventurers in this drama BUT I did warm up to all of them. A LOT of the support characters had some growing up to do from beginning to end and I think the writer successfully did this. I found myself hoping that everyone had a happy ending by the end of the drama. Everyone brought their own skills to the group and some of these skills were gender bent like fighting skills which was refreshing. You grew to care for these characters EVEN the roosters in this cdrama. The roosters were the true MVP! The support characters were endearing.

WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN BETTER

INCONSISTENT CGI - Let's start off small - the CGI was inconsistent in the drama. Parts of the CGI was SO GOOD and really added to the lore and world that is Parallel World. Other parts had horrid CGI! One part I noticed it the most is when the main group was fighting the sand people. I get that they were fighting them during a sandstorm but sometimes you could not even see the person they were fighting. Also why did they hide the faces of the sand people?

DID NOT SUPPORT 1 COUPLE GETTING TOGETHER AT ALL - The "couple" of Fei Tang and A He (played by Zhao Da and Lu YU Xiao) - I could not support them getting together. You can tell that Fei Tang liked her right away, but I just found her character to be so innocent and naive. Appearance wise there was just SUCH AN AGE GAP! She looked like a child compared to him. I don't know what her character's age was in this drama, but I would not be surprised if her character was under 18 or early 20s. His character looked like he was in his 30s or even 40s. It was a very one-sided love for most of the cdrama where he was attracted to her and wanted to get to know her and she showed little to no interest until much later in the drama. I just wanted them to remain friends and I did not like when at the end of the drama, it was clear they had become a couple. There were no romantic scenes or anything between the characters except for Fei Tang chasing after her and expressing he wanted to care for her but still, I did not like them being paired together.

MIDDLE DRAGGED/PACING - The middle REALLY DRAGGED! There was a lot of flashbacks and foreshadowing in the middle. Also, the scenes were filled with a lot of talking and exposition from certain characters to help with the world building and to explain parts of the Parallel World and to move the story forward. This caused you to watch the characters talking at tables or rooms a lot and not much action going on. I think this caused the middle of the drama to drag a bit. It needed more action sprinkled in. This caused the pacing to be off as well.

TOO MANY EPISODES - Due to the middle dragging, I think a couple of episodes could have been condensed which would cause some episodes to be retaken out and the episode count reduced. I also think the 3rd couple could have been cut out.

THE LORE/WORLD BUILDING LED TO PLOT HOLES - So, even though I enjoyed the lore and world building, it also led to plot holes. Things were introduced which were interesting but were not given context or just never talked about again. Things were not explained well. Too many factions and groups were introduced. The transitions between subplots were not done well so, you had questions. The drama does wrap up with no loose ends but how we got there could have been done better with some explanation. Also, the lore and world building moved into sort of a Xianxia drama at times which did not totally make sense.

STORY BECAME CONVOLUTED AT THE END - The plot got more convoluted and more convoluted as the drama went on. It had a lot of revelations, expositions and flashbacks in the second half. It did not know what it was. Was it a power struggle or class struggle? Was there a love triangle or a feud? What faction was what again and what were their motives? Why did the villain use Bai Yu's character? Did I care about this?

VILLAIN WAS NOT SCARY ENOUGH - At first, Long Zhi played by Meng Zi Yi was fun to watch and ruthless but as the drama went on, she became less scary. If Ni Ni's character was the villain, she would have made a better villain. Once Long Zhi's motive was revealed, it came off as childish and took me out of the story. She basically was jealous. It also wasn't fully explained why she was so jealous of Ni Ni's character or why she used Bai Yu and explained away by a prophecy. The villain sort of seemed to come out of nowhere. She was ruthless in the first half but lost all steam in the second half. She didn't even seem to go mad or insane at all which would have been more fun. I guess Ni Ni's character was too intimidating.

ENDING ANTICLIMATIC - The ending was very anticlimactic. The story was building to this EPIC standoff and battle, but we did not get that. There was a lot of talking in the end and there was no epic battle. I actually said out loud - THAT'S IT!? The ending was okay, but it fell flat. The resolution did not make 100% sense. Yes, the good guys won which brought peace but how this peace was going to last was not explained fully. It seemed like the writer just gave up. I think because the villain fell flat, the ending fell flat as well. It seemed too easy for the villain to get defeated. The couples I cared about got a happy ending but somehow you couldn't even be happy for the second couple.

THAT IS MY REVIEW OF PARALLEL WORLD!

Parallel World - 7.5/10 (VIKI)

This Cdrama was okay and entertaining but could have been awesome with some few changes.

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